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The ITU is holding its 8th Global Symposium for Regulators in Pattaya, Thailand this week, with a theme of “Six Degrees of Sharing: Innovative Infrastructure Sharing and Open Access Strategies to Promote Affordable Access for all.”

Open access on mobile networks has been a recurring theme recently. Sharing is a different matter. How can networks be shared and still promote product differentiation? There are a number of models globally, some of which will be discussed at The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit in June.

In view of yesterday’s deadline for participation in Canada’s upcoming AWS auction, I wonder if there are any network sharing plans among the applicants. Perhaps the right question is not “if” but rather “how many of” the business plans call for sharing of networks with other operators? Have any incumbents, especially those on CDMA networks, looked at network sharing as a means to overlay GSM platforms – with a reduced hit on capital?

On an obliquely related topic, I received a note last week about an initiative to promote improved ICT infrastructure to indigenous communities in the Americas. How would network sharing and open access further the objectives of the Indigenous Commission for Communication Technologies in the Americas (ICCTA).

An increased reliance on market forces means that the role of regulators, gathered this week in Thailand, is shifting from economic regulation to social regulation. In an information based economy, how should we define universal service and basic service obligations? What do these mean in a competitive industry structure?

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ITU, ICCTA, Canadian Telecom Summit

In its deferral account decision at the beginning of the year, the CRTC acknowledged that fixed wireless broadband that can deliver a service comparable to DSL.

However, as the CRTC ruled yesterday, not all fixed wireless service is the same.

In reviewing the fixed wireless service used by Mitchell Seaforth Cable TV to extend the reach of its service, the CRTC found that the $600 one-time service charge “is sufficiently large so as to be unaffordable for a large proportion of residents.”

As such, the Commission is going to allow Bell to draw funds from the deferral account in order to off-set the uneconomic portion of its business case to provide DSL service to certain portions of Dublin, Ontario. The Commission’s policy is that some variation in rates is to be expected and is acceptable. However, the rates cannot be considered comparable when a significant installation cost applies. The Commission makes an assessment of whether the service charges, alone or in combination with the monthly fee, make the service “unreasonably expensive for a large proportion of the general public in the identified community.”

There is no presumption that rates have to be subsidized; just a reasonably comparable affordability test.

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CRTC, deferral account, Bell

I was recently pointed to a speech last month by New York governor Eliot Spitzer to the New York State Farm Bureau Annual Meeting in Niagara Falls, where he launched a campaign for universal broadband service for all of NY.

When many of us think of NY, we think of one of the most densely populated parts of the planet. We think of advanced communications driving Wall Street, forgetting that there is a lot of territory upstate.

A drive from Buffalo to Albany can look similar to driving from Toronto to Sudbury – albeit with way fewer Tim Horton’s locations and no Canadian Tire stores.

Governor Spitzer said that his state has inadequate infrastructure for the Information Age.

In fact, fewer than 25 percent of New Yorkers in rural areas have access to broadband Internet. Some may assume that because these areas are rural, they have natural and unavoidable disadvantages. But a rural landscape has not stopped Canada, a mostly rural country, from maintaining a broadband penetration rate of over 50 percent.

This problem does not only affect Upstate. Downstate doesn’t fare much better. Nearly two-thirds of people living in New York City lack access to affordable, high-speed broadband.

He blames the US federal government for a lack of leadership – the absence of a national broadband strategy.

So the governor has set his own objectives:

Our goals are—by the year 2015—for every citizen of New York to have access to at least 20 megabits per second in each direction, and 100 megabits per second in major metropolitan areas.

Despite Canada being cited as ahead of New York, will broadband be an issue in Canadian politics? How will we ensure that in 2015, Canada will still be seen as a leader by our neighbours?

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Eliot Spitzer, broadband

Yak had a witness at the CRTC’s Essential Services proceeding this morning. He was asked if there was evidence of the impact of dial around in disciplining telco long distance rates.

I have access to virtually unlimited North American calling on various lines in the house. However, anyone who makes any amount of international calling is crazy if they don’t use a dial-around service. For international calling, all service providers are on an equal footing – even the major phone companies are just resellers of international long distance.

So why are dial around companies so much cheaper?

As I have pointed out before, in many cases, dial around is even cheaper than Skype. No prepayment. No need to run out to a convenience store to buy a card. No expiration date. No ‘system access fee’. You just pick up the phone and dial and the charge appears on your bill.

Some people may only make one call per month, if that. But the savings can be dramatic. Dial around provides an important level of flexibility for people swayed to lock into domestic services bundles.

Will the CRTC keeps casual calling viable? In a country like Canada that has such a high percentage of people making occasional international calls, dial around provides affordable choice.

Whazzup with the fact-checking in recent editorials on wireless services?

It started with last week’s Montreal Gazette editorial and then moved out to the Vancouver Sun. On Monday, the Ottawa Citizen jumped on the bandwagon, substituting hyperbole for facts in expressing its opinion on wireless services.

Last week, I dared to point out that the Gazette ignored facts that didn’t agree with its agenda. The Citizen went beyond that stage and just got its facts wrong.

One paragraph was particularly insulting to the software and hardware developers that call Canada home:

Nobody with a cutting-edge product to sell wants to set up someplace where mobile phone and data connections are second-rate and cripplingly expensive, particularly if they’re in the information-age industries we prize so highly, any more than you’d build a factory in a place with no roads or rail.

Are they really suggesting that Canada doesn’t offer opportunities for communications research and development? Has the Citizen not looked out the window into the nature of industries set up in its own backyard? There are at least a couple people in the National Capital Region who draw paychecks from companies developing cutting edge products, including multi-national firms that could easily relocate elsewhere.

Outside the city of dreams (as a former boss of mine used to call Ottawa), companies like Ericsson continue to expand their Canadian presence. Hundreds of entrepreneurs continue to innovate in companies located in every corner of the country.

What exactly did the Citizen mean by ‘nobody’? Is the Citizen suggesting that none of them want to set up in Ottawa, let alone anywhere else in Canada?

Another point. With the OECD having just released its annual communications review, why would the Citizen look at the 2003 report – and misquote it at that?

According to 2003 figures from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Canada lagged all other member countries in mobile-phone use with about 40-per-cent adoption; most other OECD countries were at 80 per cent or above.

Besides the fact that the cited figures are 3 years out of date, the numbers refer to mobile phone penetration, not mobile phone use. Fact is, Canadians are among the world’s biggest users of their mobile phones. Can we possibly deduce that, despite all of us wanting lower mobile rates, the pricing may be affordable?

Let’s look at the paragraph that creatively calls CDMA the cellular equivalent of Betamax – I actually think that is a clever metaphor, but the Citizen wasn’t satisfied with leaving it at that. Instead, it proclaimed:

a lack of interoperability with foreign providers makes life difficult for Canadians wanting to take their mobiles abroad, and for foreigners visiting Canada on business.

I don’t believe it. Bell and TELUS both offer a number of devices, including the latest Blackberry, that provide global roaming capabilities. Help me understand how foreign business people have been disadvantaged visiting Canada, just because we only have one GSM company? Is there any research to back this up, or is this another anecdotal tale being repeated to create an image of truth.

Canadians need to have an intelligent debate of the issues in respect of the upcoming spectrum auction. There are good arguments on both sides of the issue. Better decisions are a logical outcome when there is a vibrant discussion of important issues. But can we agree to at least consider the facts?

We deserve more accurate information from our newspapers in presenting support for their arguments.